Ghastly!”
“Marie, you’re cruel—but sensitive.”
“Thank you.”
“Marie, you must realize that Anthony is
not a well man. He’s a lot like I am now, you
see, but of course, of course, he doesn’t
have what I have. He’s searching, you see…
I’ve my Helen, and—”
“Stop babbling,” interrupted the girl.
“Do you realize,”
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“Do you realize,” Paul went on uncon-
cernedly, throwing himself on the divan next
to Marie, “that love is painful, that it makes a
man like Anthony suffer? Oh, I know, I
know—it’s all the pain of happiness. But he is
the weeping kind. And do you realize, my
dear, that if he is weak, he can do nothing
about it? So he hit you this morning! … and for
that little slap in the face, he’s endured upon
himself an eight-hour session of imponder-
able sorrow, unspeakable angoisse.”
“You crazy child!”
“Does your face hurt? Does your face
hurt?”
“Shut up.”
“His heart is broken, Marie you diaboli-
cal witch!..”
“You came here to call me names?”
“Yes, because I love you.”
Marie got up from the couch and threw
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 61
her cigarette out the open window. Then
she stopped in front of the radio and
laughed.
“Ha ha,” mocked Paul, getting up also. “It’s
just that I love you enough to want you to love
Anthony, and I know Anthony well…”
“My God!” cried Marie. “You’re mad,
aren’t you?”
“No, no.”
They were silent, and Paul began to pace
the rooms.
“Now,” he said at length. “I come to see
you as Anthony’s envoy, to tell you that he is
weak, and that he’s sorry, and that nothing
matters but that you love him as he loves
you. Can you do that? Can you do that?”
“Can I do that?” Marie echoed contemp-
tuously. “Have you eaten lately?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll heat you some soup. You’re in a
delirium.”
Marie went off into the kitchen, with Paul
right at her heels, talking furiously. “Marie, will
you forgive him? Oh, this waste of time!! People
waste all their time. They’re alive for just so
long, and they waste their time on recrimina-
tions and retributions and all such nonsense.
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 62
Wait, you’ll
find out all
about me some
day, and
you’ll realize
what I’m say-
ing. You
might meet my
Helen...
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 63
Give me some soup, yes, and some bread. I
am rather hungry…”
Marie was calmly giving him a piece of
bread, and removing a soup bowl from the
cupboard. The soup was heating on the
stove.
“A lovely kitchen,” Paul was saying. “Tell
me, Marie. What shall I do? Shall I get
Anthony, sober him up, and bring him
here?”
“No. He’s got to come of his own accord.”
“Then my words have done some good?!..
haven’t they?”
“No, not your words. I love my husband.
We’d have made up eventually. I dare say
we don’t need your help, either.”
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“Ha ha!” cried Paul. “I’m a time saver…”
“Balderdash!”
Paul sat at the little table and took the
spoon Marie had offered him. “You see,” he
cried, “I’ve done some good. I’ve saved
time. Accept Anthony, accept him…he’s a
good man, a wonderful soul. He’s weeping
in the Boulevard Bar now, because he
struck you…”
“You nor anyone else can’t patch up our
troubles,” Marie said, placing the steaming
bowl of soup before the hungry Paul.
“Anthony strikes me…it’s his problem. No
one else can help. That’s why he weeps,
you little fool, because he realizes that he
alone is guilty.”
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“It’s you”
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“And you?”
“I, of course, have my share of guilt. And
it’s none of your business, little Jesus Christ.
I’m restless and intolerant, and I never
seem to have made up my mind one way or
another about Anthony. Well…”
Paul slurped up several spoonfuls of
soup and then jumped up. “Now I’ve got to
go. I’m pressed for time, goodbye, and look
I’ll take this bread with me. Thank you…”
And suddenly, Paul had walked out of the
kitchen and was gone.
Marie picked up the bowl from the table
and emptied the soup in the sink. She went to
the door and closed it, for Paul had forgotten to
close it in his haste. Then she went back to her
divan and sat down with a freshly-lit cigarette.
She was smiling secretly.
The buzzer rang again and she thought it
was Paul rushing back to say something
further. But a few moments later, Michael
knocked at the door and walked in.
“It’s you,” Marie said.
“You coming to the party tonight?”
Michael asked outright.
“Sit down,” Marie said. “Yes, I suppose
so. You must remember that it’s Maureen’s
party.”
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 67
“I don’t care. I want to see you.”
“You and your inconvenient remarks,”
Marie said.
“Well? And who cares?” Michael had sat
down in a chair in the other room and was
watching Marie gloomily. There was a
silence during which nothing further need-
ed to be said.
“I’ve fixed up a little apartment in the
Quarter,” Michael finally said. “I expect you
soon.” His tone was firm, but gloomy.
Marie did not reply. She was watching
him with something of weariness in her
demeanor. Finally, she said: “What do you
expect of me?”
“I only expect you to be sensible.”
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 68
“What? You
want me to
leave my
husband for
a while! You
call that
sensible?”
“Of course.
For both of
us. I desire
you, that’s
all there is.”
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 69
“And suppose I didn’t desire you, as you
so romantically put it?"
“Why can?
??t you?”
“I don’t think you’re capable of a decent
affair, that’s why I can’t. You neurotics are
all the same as lovers. Foo! Go home!”
Michael began to smile sardonically.
“How can you be so sure?” he asked. “I
know, I know also by the expression on your
face that the idea appeals to you. You know
that I have money and that we can have the
best for as long as we want it to last. You
also need a change, I can sense that in your
voice.”
“Nonsense.”
Michael got up, and, without a word,
walked out of the apartment. He left Marie
in a very pensive mood.
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III
IN THAT LAND,
the biggest holiday of the year occurs on
the 27th of April, which is usually the first
fine day of spring, and if not—the weather
being unfavorable—it is at least a day
breathing with the first sharply defined
odor of spring, and rife with its gentleness.
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Now, Maureen had planned a party for
the eve of the Spring Day, and all that day—
even during Paul’s unwelcome visit—she’d
been very busy preparing the apartment for
the festivities. Michael had given her some
money with which to buy things to prettify
the rooms, and also for hors d’oeuvres and
such things as are served at parties.
Maureen had taken great care in setting
out flowers throughout the house, for she
loved flowers, and candles, and brightly col-
ored bowls full of nuts and candies.
It was seven o’clock before she allowed
herself time to sit down and rest. By that
time, Michael was back from his afternoon
stroll, and was deeply absorbed in his writ-
ing. The invitations had been send out, and
their friends would start coming sometime
around nine o’clock.
“And dinner?” Michael demanded, look-
ing up from his desk. Maureen gave him a
beseeching look. “It’s out we go for dinner,
then,” Michael concluded. He was in good
spirits now, and had just written some lines
that met with his judged approval; and just
the night before, he had completed a philo-
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 75
sophical essay of which he was inordinately
proud. “Come,” he said now, “let’s go down
to a good restaurant—how about the
Lobster Shack?—and have something deli-
cious to eat. Lobster, steamed clams, any-
thing you like.”
They went to dinner and, as they were
crossing the campus, Leo accosted them.
“Well, well—hello. And the big party
tonight, I’ve got my invitation with me right
here. I’ve just wound up my studies, and I
was on my way over to your place now.
Thought it wouldn’t be out of place to come
a little early.”
“It would,” Michael replied gruffly.
“Maureen and I are going to eat. She’s been
preparing the apartment all day.”
“Well, can I accompany you to the
restaurant? I’ve nothing else to do.
Although I’ve already eaten…”
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 76
Michael smiled shyly. “All right, Leo.”
Each time he was gruff to Leo, and each
time that the other yielded so stickily, he
became ashamed of himself. He was not a
sadist, not Michael except where it gave
him pleasure, and for that his attacks need-
ed a contained resistance of a sort, such as
Maureen offered him.
They had dinner while Leo drank coffee
and babbled endlessly about his studies and
about Paul. Maureen was in a pleasant
mood, and she was enjoying her lobster
thermidor and paying no attention to Leo.
“Now,” she said at length, “we’ll go back,
and I’ll get things done for good. Oh
Michael darling,” she said, while Leo was
off to buy cigarettes at the counter of the
restaurant, “say that you love me.”
“Just for today? Spring Day eve?”
“No, for always.” Maureen squeezed
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 77
Michael’s hand beneath the table. She was
ten years older than Michael, and each time
that she squeezed his hand in a public
place, it reminded Michael unpleasantly of
his mother, and of the way that she too used
to show affection in public places. “Are you
happy?” she asked.
“Certainly. You’re a fine woman,
Maureen; and I love you very much.”
“Say that you’ll never go away from me.”
“I’ll never go away from you,” Michael
said. Sometimes, when they were in bed,
she would make Michael repeat those
words over and over again while she held
his head in her bosom and rocked it back
and forth. Michael, by nature very non-
committal, could always cope with these sit-
uations by the sheer weight of his general
indifference towards life.
“I wish,” went on Maureen wistfully,
“that we could fall in love like those two,
Anthony and that Marie.”
“Do you think so?” Michael asked, frown-
ing. “Look at poor Anthony…”
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“I wish”
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 79
“I know, but it’s that witch of his, Marie—
even though I can’t see what she sees in him,
he’s such a drunkard and a pest sometimes.”
Leo was back. “Come on,” he said, “let’s
go out while it’s still light, and take a little
walk.”
They went out and strolled around the
campus. Michael had bought a cigar and
was puffing it contentedly. He was already
on fire with a new poem—he would go right
straight to bed, now, and prop up on some
pillows and write it.
It was just sundown when they had
returned to X Street. A bird was sitting on the
top branch of a small poplar in front of their
apartment house entrance. Michael stopped
and looked up at the bird.
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Leo laughed. “Hail to thee, blithe spirit…”
“No,” cried Michael, “quiet, Leo. Listen to
him? Do you remember what I was telling
you about the impulse of God? The sparrow
there is expressing it. He knows. Listen!”
“My God,” said Maureen. “Are we going
to stand here for hours listening to the
impulse of God?”
“Of course not,” said Michael, with some
annoyance. “I’m sleepy. I’m going to take a
/> nap before the party begins. Listen to the
sparrow. Its imagination is filled with God…”
They all three were silent as the bird
trilled. Michael smiled secretly. He looked
up at the street and saw, over the library roof,
the last faint hues of the sunset. “The bird,”
he went on, “is singing the song of dusk, on
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ORPHEUS EMERGED 81
Spring Day eve. Could there be more per-
fect happiness? Not just to be expressing,
but to be your expression. Isn’t that love?
Isn’t that life?” he now asked harshly of
Leo. “Isn’t that more than human love,
than human life, more, much more?”
“Foo!” said Maureen. “Let’s go up.”
“What do you mean?” Leo asked, showing
eager interest, and lighting up a cigarette.
Michael began, “I mean—” But Maureen
had clutched at his arm.
“Look,” she whispered. “There’s that Paul.”
Michael and Leo turned nervously in the
direction she had indicated with her head.
Paul was standing in the shadows of a door-
way just a few feet away watching them.
There was a brief silence, during which the
bird too had interrupted its song.
“Well?” Maureen said warily.
“What are you doing there?” laughed
Leo. “You’re a ghost; you hover in door-
ways. Come here. Are you coming to the
party tonight?”
Paul did not answer, nor did he move
away from the doorway.
“Are you?”
“I wasn’t invited,” he said quietly and
casually.
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Michael turned to Maureen, but kept his
tongue. Leo fell into an embarrassed silence.
“Of course,” Paul went on quietly from
his doorway, “of course, my not being invit-
ed has nothing to do with anything. You all
know me well, and my ways. I may walk
into the middle of the party, and no one will
object. It’s only Paul, they’ll say, and he does
things like that…”
“That’s right,” Michael interrupted in a
surly tone. “So why do you have to bemoan
that part of it.”
Paul smiled and began to walk away up X